The owner of Patisserie Valerie, the specialty café and cake chain, is hoping to raise £33m from its flotation on the AIM stock exchange in London.

Patisserie Holdings is the latest retailer to seek public listing, following initial public offerings from Boohoo.com, Card Factory, Pets at Home and Poundland.

The group, which also operates Baker & Spice bakeries, Druckers Vienna Patisseries, sandwich chain Philpotts and the Flour Power City Baker, will use float proceeds to pay off outstanding debt of £21.9m and shareholder loans of £10.8m.

Existing shareholders are set to release an additional £55m of stock for sale in the flotation, which is expected to value Patisserie’s equity at £170m. Canaccord Genuity is advising the float.

Patisserie Holdings, which is majority owned by former Pizza Express chairman Luke Johnson, opened 19 additional stores in 2013 and made a pre-tax profit of £4.7m on sales of £60.1m in the year to September 2013.

Mr Johnson aims to open as many stores in 2014 as last year, and has identified Wales and Ireland as possible areas of growth.

Patisserie Holdings operates 138 stores, of which 89 are Patisserie Valerie cafés. The group opened 72 Patisserie Valerie cafés in the past seven years and has identified 250 potential new sites.

Paul May, chief executive of the group, said the stores serve “affordable treats” throughout the day, which drives trading even in the “traditionally quieter” mid-morning and mid-afternoon period.

“With this favourable positioning across fragmented markets, we believe we are well-placed to continue to deliver strong organic growth, with additional opportunities for potentially attractive acquisitions of other, smaller branded groups”, he said.

Patisserie Valerie began as a single store on Old Crompton Street in London’s Soho in 1926 and was turned into a small chain by the Scalzo family in the 1980s.

The three brothers, Enzo, Robert, and Victor, created eight Patisserie Valerie stores, and the current management team bought majority stake in the group in September 2006.

Mr Johnson and Mr May have built the business through four acquisitions, most recently Philpotts sandwich chain at the beginning of March, which has 23 shops.

In total, the purchases have set them back more than £15m.

The group has grown throughout the recession, which is unusual for a retail brand where the average spend is £8.84 per person.

In March, Mr Johnson told The Sunday Telegraph that he and Mr May are “massively ambitious.”

"And the fact is, look at this economy, it’s on fire. And this has only been in our ownership during tough times”, he said.